The game known as “bingo” is played with predefined bingo cards that each include a number of bingo designations such as Arabic numerals randomly arranged in a desired manner, commonly in a grid. The bingo designations on the cards are selected from a pool of bingo designations. In traditional bingo games, the cards are physically printed on paper or other suitable material. These traditional printed cards are purchased by players prior to the start of a game. After a buy in period in which players purchase bingo cards for a game, designations from the pool of bingo designations are selected at random to produce a sequence of game designations for the play of the bingo game. As the game designations are selected and announced in the game, the players match the randomly selected game designations with the designations (“card designations”) printed on their respective card or cards. This matching and marking of matched designations on the bingo card is commonly referred to as “daubing” the card. The player first producing a predetermined pattern of matches between the randomly selected game designations and the printed card designations on a single card, and then announcing “bingo” to claim the win, is considered the winner. Consolation prizes may be awarded to players having cards matched to produce consolation prize patterns at the time of the winning pattern. Additional prizes may be awarded during the course of a traditional bingo game to players matching other patterns prior to the time the game ending winning pattern is first produced.
There are numerous variations on the traditional bingo game. One particular variation on the traditional bingo game is played with electronic bingo card representations rather than the traditional printed bingo cards. In these electronic bingo games, each bingo card is represented by a data structure that defines the various card locations and designations associated with the locations. The game is played through player stations connected via a communications network. A central computer system or game server in the network may be responsible for storing the bingo card representations and distributing or communicating bingo card representations to players at the player stations. The player stations display the bingo cards defined by the card representations and also allow the players to daub or mark designation matches as game designations are announced in the game. A primary advantage of this type of electronic bingo game is that the games may be played at a much faster pace than is practical with traditional paper bingo. Another advantage of this electronic version of bingo is that the games can be administered and controlled from a remote location and actually played at a number of different bingo establishments, thus allowing greater participation in the games.
U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/456,721, published as U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2004/0152499 A1 on Aug. 5, 2004, is directed to a networked electronic bingo gaming system that may facilitate rapid play of bingo games. This bingo gaming system rapidly groups players into relatively small bingo game groups and then conducts an individual bingo game for each group. The system has the capability of choosing groups of any size, from two players to many players. However, it is preferable to include as few players as possible in a group for conducting a bingo game in this system in order to keep the time required for collecting the group of players to a minimum. Including a very small number of players in a bingo game group, however, limits the prize structure available for the various patterns that may be obtained in the bingo game. For example, assume each bingo game group is limited to two players. In this case, exactly one half of the players participating in each bingo game in the system will achieve a winning pattern. This is true because a bingo game ends with a player achieving a game ending winning pattern. Because at least one half of the players participating in each bingo game in the system obtain winning results, the prizes available for winning results must be limited. Prizes associated with non-game ending patterns must also be limited. Thus, limiting the number of players in each bingo game group to a very small number, such as two or three, has the effect of limiting the prize structure available for the game.